by Ed Pettibone » Mon May 19, 2014 7:37 am
Ed: Number one ET was not talking about Oso. Mans activity does seem to have contributed to the Mud slide there but it did not cause the rain which caused the the slide;
See this report; The plateau above the hillside that gave way has been logged for almost a century, and the hillside has a history of landslides dating back more than 60 years. For more than 25 years, as the slope became more unstable, scientists challenged the timber cutting and warned of possible calamity. Yet the state continued to allow logging on the plateau. A "clear-cut" is an area of land in which all the trees have been cut down. One suspected trigger of the Oso landslide is a clear-cut, undertaken 9 years ago, that apparently encroached into a restricted area and is only now being investigated.
The landslide, which occurred near the banks of the Stillaguamish River, was not only predictable; it was also predicted. New York Times reporter Timothy Egan recounts touring the headwaters of the Stillaguamish 25 years ago with Pat Stevenson, a biologist with the local Stillaguamish tribe: "Stevenson pointed uphill, to bare, saturated earth that was melting, like candle wax, into the main mudslide. Not long ago, this had been a thick forest of old growth timber. But after it was excessively logged, every standing tree removed, there was nothing to hold the land in place during heavy rains. A federal survey determined that nearly 50 percent of the entire basin above Deer Creek had been logged over a 30-year period. It didn't take a degree in forestry to see how one event led to the other." Forest root systems hold the soil in place, and old-growth forests absorb about ten times as much water as clear-cut land.
State allowed logging on plateau above slope | Local News ...
seattletimes.com/.../2023225363_mudslideloggingxml....
The Seattle Times
Mar 25, 2014 - In recent decades the state allowed logging — with restrictions — on the ... Related. Interactive map:
Number two, I do not believe ET was discounting the pain and suffering of the Storm Victims in New Jersey but was simply discounting Keith's reference to the dollar amounts of damage offered by Keith
For several years in recent history the area has been over built with Homes in the $500,000 and up range. Therefor it is not reasonable to compare recent damage with the distant past.